Chris Burford
Mon, 28 Feb 2000 15:40:57 -0800
At 11:32 28/02/00 +1100, you wrote:
>Comrades,
>Despite protests around Australia, PM John Howard and Chief Minister of the
>Northern Territory, Denis Burke and Premier of West Australia, Richard Court
>are refusing to repeal mandatory sentencing. In the last 3 weeks, a 15 year
>old boy hung himself while in jail for stealing texta/pencils worth $50, a
22
>year old Aboriginal man was jailed for one year for stealing biscuits worth
>about $10, another young Aboriginal man jailed for 14 days for breaking a
>window in his own home and a 15 year old boy was held over night in jail in
>Perth for taking 40c from a public phone booth so he could catch a train
home.
There are times when I think thaxis is a refuge for marxists from countries
other than the USA who, in volume terms, dominate marxism lists. But if we
are to become truly internationalist in "marxism-space" we need to be able
to read and hear what is unique in the struggle in each country, but also
to discuss what is common.
It seems to me that mandatory sentences are a sort of mirror image of
individualist bourgeois rights. The latter treat all human beings as
abstractly equal and ignore the class or other differences between them.
Yet this affects what sort of lawyers they can hire to enforce their equal
rights. So for this and other reasons, equal rights get enforced unequally.
Mandatory sentences are common, if I understand correctly, in the USA too.
People are supposed to be punished equally for the same crime. The fact
that this ends up with a system where black people are greatly
over-represented among those lined up on death row, is dismissed as pure
chance.
What is a more socialist attitude to rights and punishment?
To see the rights, and the undesirable behaviour within the individual's
social context.
With crime, that does not mean ignoring the reality of the crime. It means
asking the person to take responsibility for their decisions but the
society also to take responsibility for the conditions in which the person
found themselves.
Crime is extremely common among young men and is almost normal affiliative
behaviour, part of risk taking and maturation. In London studies have shown
that re-offending has been cut substantially by cautioning first offenders
and introduing them to a youth club. Unfortunately the previous
conservative government cut youth clubs.
But what is cheaper, a youth club or a punishment youth prison camp?
What is the cost of - is it really over 2 million prisoners - in the land
of the free??
I am not sure how much this may have parallels to the situation in
Australia, but people need social support and individual and social
challenges. People are basically good. Only those who believe in the
exploitation of the majority by the minority, or who are part of
privileged minority of beneficiaries, believe otherwise.
Chris Burford
London
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